A famous New York magician, David Blaine, is in London now sitting in a box hanging over the River Thames, attempting to stay there with no food for 44 days. He's performed similar feats in other cities, to the delight of generally supportive crowds. In London, however, it only took a few hours before gangs of rowdies showed up and, among other things, hurled eggs at the box, tossed leftover fish and chips, banged drums all night long, and in the most enterprising case, stood on Tower Bridge and hit golf balls toward the sleep-deprived Blaine.

Is it celebrity envy? Or just a classically sarcastic reaction to a rather useless stunt?

Anyway, I think I'll wander down there today and check it out...

This is pretty cool - a group called "Culture Cloud" is putting together a collection of weblogs for the Angel neighborhood in London. They're supposed to be topical to a certain building or place, and they're accessible via a map-interface online as well as on free kiosks that have sprung up around the neighborhood. Anyway, they asked me to write a diary for them on the "southern edge" of the map, since that's where I live. So we'll see what this evolves into.

A funny thing about the UK is that public notices and warnings tend to be rather long and drawn out, in comparison to the US. My current favorite is the noise that trucks make when they back-up:

In the US, a truck simply goes "BEEP... BEEP"

In the UK, there is a nasaly electronic female voice that goes "BEEP...Stand Well Clear! ... Vehicle Reversing!"

It's fantastic. I really have to make a recording of this for fuller appreciation.

Sitting at an inevitable mid-cycle-ride pub stop along the river Lea, I noticed an odd attachment to some of the busses passing over a nearby bridge. (see photo). B and I debated their purpose, and came to two possible conclusions:

a) Handles for high level maintenance work or b) Branch deflectors.

What do you think?

The reconstriction of Shakespeare's Globe is my new favorite thing in London. If you're anywhere near here, I highly recommend popping in for a performance.

Last night I saw Christopher Marlowe's Edward the II, which was fabulous, though a bit long (3+ hours). Ignoring the electical lighting, you can easily pretend you're in old London. Very cool, especially with a mug of wine. I'd like to make it back there soon for some actual Shakespeare.

This is either something I just haven't noticed, or else it's an American newspaper making up strange stories about Britain in the same way the British claim every American has an arsenal of firearms in the closet...

Anyway, according to the New York Times, there is an epidemic of hedge rage tearing Britain apart. Apparently neighborly disagreements regarding hedge maintenance have been turning bloody. There is even a lobbyist group known as "Hedgeline" founded by a man described as "a hero to the fledgling hedge-dispute empowerment movement". Wow.

The last few times I've moved, one of the first things I've done is turned on my laptop and wandered around to see if there was a Wi-Fi in the neighborhood. It never worked, until now! Courtesy of the local neighborhood council! I have free broadband! At last!

Unfortunately, my apartment is so old-school you have to buy "electricity tokens" from the gas station and put them in a machine downstairs. We ran out tonight and I'm typing this by candlelight. Looking forward to a cold shower tommorow! Good grief!

Down the street from my flat in London lie the illustrious gates to "Goodenough" college. It's not the best, but it's good enough for me! Actually, for all I know this may be a great school, but I can't keep myself from laughing every time I walk past! (photo c/o J. Rueppel)

A few words not used in the US or used so sparingly they're almost unknown...

envisage, whilst, queue, aubergine, courgette, servillette (are we French yet?), caff (guess not), bespoke, plaster, sellotape, carriageway, crisps, spanner, pram, adverse camber...

That's what I came up with in a few minutes anyway. I still don't totally understand bespoke.

London has finally done it to me. After 6 months of somehow maintaing a fairly constant bank balance, I'm now heading downhill fast.

The power of this city to suck money out of your pocket is simply incredible. I paid $50 for a minicab ride across town last night. That's beyond obscene. The worst part about it is that I'm starting to accept this sort of thing as normal.

It's definitely too early to start singing big-time praises, but i have to admit that since the congestion charge went into effect on Monday, there has been noticeably less traffic on my street in the morning, and noticeably more bicycle traffic. Pretty impressive start.

Well, once again I misread dates here and 11/9 to 12/12 actually means Sepember to December so the utility bill was for three months, not one. Still really expensive, but I'm sweating less.

Someone got me a gag gift yesterday: a book called "Ripoff Britain", a purported guide to avoiding high prices here. Looks like I'm going to need all the help I can get. Our electricity bill for last month was $240 and the water bill was $160. This is for a two bedroom apartment. Pardon my french, but what the fuck is going on??? That's close to 10 times the price I would expect to pay in the states. Unbelievable. I think there must have been some kind of mistake, either that, or its time to reduce my showering to weekly, and invest in candles.

For the third time in a row, the bottle of coke I bought at the shop is labeled in a language other than English, this time Slovak. At first I thought this was some kind of European Union thing about equalizing languages or something. But then I found out that the British are quite keen to travel to Calais, France to load up on beverages, which cost less than 50% the price in Britain.

I don't know about soft drinks, but some friends just got back with 80 bottles of wine and and an enormous beer supply, which is all perfectly legal. But it's not legal to resell it. Anyway, the cops can't keep track of all the shopkeepers in London, so it looks like those rascals at the Video Shop are Eastern European coke smugglers too. Oh well, tasted fine.

The future of Britain took a bright step forward today as my office actually initiated aluminum can recycling. This is contrary to my previous opinion on the British attitude toward recycling, and makes me so happy I might start pronouncing aluminum with 5 sylables!

Saw my first British football, er Soccer, match yesterday. Nottingham Forest were the visiting team, for whom I was rooting, and they played Cristal Palace. Tragically it was a 0-0 tie game, though Forest managed to score 3 times, all three times were disallowed on the gounds of someone being offsides. Bit of a let-down. Anyways, it was a great time, far better than your average American sports event where people leave half way through and are barely halfway aware of what's goind on. At the match yesterday, not only was everyone's attention riveted, but the fans were so enthusiastic they had to be separated into home and away goups so as to avoid mayhem. The crowd was in almost constant song, very little of which I could understand, but it was all quite theatric and excellent.

My neighborhood was a warzone last night. 12 year old boys were everywhere armed to the teeth with full scale fireworks. Not those paltry little bottlerockets you get in the US, i'm talking about real fireworks, the kind you need a profesional liscese for. Anyways, they were going off everywhere for hours, hitting the sides of high-rise buildings and exploding occasionally on the ground, way to close for comfort. There was also at least one full scale bonfire going on with dozens of little kids hurling gasoline on it. If not for age and obvious lack of experience of the participants, I'd have joined in. Instead I covered my head and ran for cover.

The following two photos are views from a) my old back porch in San Francisco, and b) my living room window in London. Can you guess which is which?

House hunting! Man, this is worse than finding a roommate. It's hard to make up my mind about these places. Some will undoubtedly be offered to me, and I will have to turn them down for one reason or another, so it's hard to be too nice to all these people. I feel like I'm interviewing for a job.... but some of these jobs I may not want. OH well, off to drinks with a prospective roommate. We shall see...

Off to London tommorow. In other news, Rob K has gotten himself a blog! [link] ... and it looks pretty good. Trust this man's opinions.

Every time I travel, I forget one key thing. I've packed so much stuff for this move (surprisingly, it's cheaper to haul it all on the plane, than ship it) that i can't imaging what it will be this time. Chances are I'll figure it out in a week when I'm missing a shoe or something. Anyways, brief entry as always. Off to bed now.